America, Gone Bad

Police Officers Gone Bad

Sgt. Phillip Seidle has been charged with murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of his 7-year-old daughter in the death of his 51-year-old ex-wife Tamara, first assistant prosecutor Mark LeMieux said. The couple, who divorced on May 27, had nine children, ranging in age from 7 to 24.

The fatal shooting followed a violent encounter that began when Seidle — with his young daughter in the passenger seat of his silver Honda Pilot — chased his wife as she was driving through the streets of Asbury Park, LeMieux said.

Here’s how LeMieux described the shooting:

As Tamara Seidle was trying to flee, her vehicle crashed into a parked car on Sewall Avenue. Phillip Seidle’s car then crashed into hers, and he got out of the car, pulled out his handgun, and approached her car, immediately firing into the driver’s side several times.

Seidle’s daughter was in his car while he was shooting into her mother’s car.

Once Seidle stopped shooting, he put a gun to his head and started walking around the vehicle, police said. Police, who were nearby investigating an unrelated motor vehicle accident, started talking to Seidle, and got him to agree that they could take his daughter out of the car.

As she was taken away, Seidle then walked to the front of his wife’s car and fired into the windshield.

Seidle then put the gun again to his head, and there was a 30-minute standoff while police attempted to get him to surrender. He did so at 11:52 a.m., LeMieux said.

Eyewitness Michael Terrell described how Seidle ran out to the middle of the street, yelling at his ex-wife about child custody battles.

“The guy was in the middle of the street,” said Terrell, a Neptune resident who was working at Campbell’s Door Supply Co. on Sewall Avenue at the time. “He was saying, ‘I’m tired of going to court.'”

The pursuit began at about 10:40am Wednesday when the driver of a blue Chrysler 300 fled during a traffic stop. Authorities say police tried to pull over the driver for “suspicious activity,” including unsafe lane changes.

After several minutes of a high speed pursuit, during which the driver eluded police by going around patrol cars and even driving into the grass, the chase came to a crashing halt. The suspect slammed into a small white car at the intersection of Wallisville and Castlegory, then spun into another vehicle.

That’s when the suspect, identified as Frank Ernest Shepherd, III, got out of the car, but as he reached back inside the vehicle, officers opened fire, fatally striking him. Police say 10 to 12 shots were fired.

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The end of the pursuit unfolded quickly, with only a matter of seconds elapsing between the time the suspect struck the white car and the time officers opened fire. HPD spokesperson John Cannon says two of the officers involved in the chase have been on the force for six years. He identified them as R Gonzales and L Engle. He didn’t elaborate on the nature of their involvement. It’s not yet known if they were wearing body cameras. [emphasis added]

Henry Solis was off-duty on Friday morning when gunfire killed 23-year-old Salome Rodriguez, Jr. in Pomona, 30 miles east of Los Angeles, the Pomona Police Department said in a statement on Sunday.

A 27-year-old probationary officer assigned to the Devonshire Division in the San Fernando Valley, Solis later failed to show up for work on Saturday following the shooting, and his car was found on Sunday abandoned near the scene.

“Solis’ whereabouts is unknown, and we have reason to believe that he knows the police are looking to talk with him,” the statement said.

…

A preliminary investigation found that Rodriguez and another man “were engaged in a physical altercation” just before the shooting,” the police said in the statement. “It is unknown if the suspect and the victim knew each other.”

An off-duty PBSO deputy shot and killed one of his own relatives on Christmas Eve, but police are mum on details, releasing only minimum info about the victim — a 21-year-old named Khamis Shatara, who apparently wanted to be a cop.

The shooting happened in Delray Beach, and the deputy has been detained by that city’s police department, reported WPTV. For two days after the shooting, the name of the deputy who took his own relative’s life was not released by police or the local TV news station, which says it’s withholding it out of respect for the family. That kind of courtesy is not usually given to regular, nonpolice folks arrested for crimes, but hey — it’s Christmas.

However, late Friday afternoon, Sgt. Nicole Guerriero confirmed to New Times that the name of the deputy who killed his son is Shatara K. Shatara.

As for the victim, Khamis Shatara appears to have been a criminal justice major at Palm Beach State College who idolized police.

Authorities identified 32-year-old Stephen Rozniakowski, an officer with the Colwyn Borough Police Department, as the gunman in the deadly shooting that occurred around 9:30 p.m. Monday in a home on the 600 block of Glenfield Avenue in Glenolden.

Investigators said Rozniakowski dated Morrow years ago, but the woman only recently filed a protection from abuse order against him.

Initial reports indicate another police officer, who was off-duty at the time, was in the home when the suspect started firing. The off-duty cop shot Rozniakowski, who was taken to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, according to officials. His condition is unknown.

Before the fatal shooting, Rozniakowski called the Colwyn Borough Police Department to announce his resignation, investigators said.

NBC10 Investigator Harry Hairston put a spotlight on Rozniakowski earlier this year when the officer was placed on “administrative leave” after his former fiancee filed a protection from abuse order against him.

Plymouth Township Police arrested Rozniakowski and charged him with 25 counts of stalking and 50 counts of harassment for allegedly contacting his former fiancee by phone and text repeatedly.

Deputy Jeremy Martin, 29, was pronounced dead at a Las Cruces hospital, while the shooter — identified by his attorney as 27-year-old Tai Chan — was being questioned by police Tuesday morning.

Police say the two deputies were taking a prisoner to Arizona, and were returning through Las Cruces where they rented a room at Hotel Encanto around 4 p.m. Monday. That night they went to Dublin’s Street Pub, a local bar, where police say the two started arguing. “It’s believed they consumed alcohol,” reads a release from the Las Cruces Police Department. The argument escalated when they returned to their seventh floor hotel room, and that’s when police say the shooter fired several rounds from a semi-automatic gun at Martin, who was trying to escape by running to the elevator.

Officers found Martin bleeding heavily just outside the elevator in the lobby around 12:30 a.m., with gunshots to his back and arms. He was rushed to the Mountain View Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Police began searching the hotel for the shooter, who was found in a stairwell near the roof of the hotel.

The Rocky Ford police officer involved in the shooting, James Ashby, is on administrative leave pending the investigation.

…

Sara Lindenmuth is the victim’s sister-in-law. She said Jack Jacquez came home just before 2 a.m. Then, she said a police officer forced down the front door and the two men started shouting.

“He was standing next to his mom, his back turned toward the officer and then he shot him twice in the back and then pepper sprayed him. Then they handcuffed his fiancé, for reasons I don’t know why. And the mom went to call the cops and the cop took her phone and threw it against the wall,” said Lindenmuth.

Mariah Jacquez said one of the shots fired almost hit her. She said she and her soon-to-be mother-in-law were handcuffed but didn’t know why.

Farzana Parveen was attacked on Tuesday outside the High Court building in the eastern city of Lahore by more than two dozen brick-wielding attackers, including her brother and father, for marrying against the wishes of her family.

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Parveen, who was three months pregnant, had gone to court to testify in defence of her husband Muhammad Iqbal — who was accused by her relatives of kidnapping her and forcing her into marriage.

Iqbal, 45, told AFP the couple had survived a previous attack during the first hearing of the case on May 12 and demanded justice for his wife.

He told the BBC that police officers at the court were “watching silently” while his wife was beaten to death on Tuesday, despite desperate attempts to get them to act.

“One of my relatives took off his clothes to catch their attention,” he told the broadcaster.

“A naked man was crying for help in front of the High Court but nobody intervened.”

…

Last year 869 women died in so-called “honour killings” according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Conviction rates are very low due to Pakistan’s blood-money laws which allow kin to forgive perpetrators, usually family members in such cases.

When EMS paramedics arrived at the scene they found the color draining from Payne’s face, his clothes soaked in blood and his hands cuffed behind his back. A witness described the police officers on the scene as “nonchalant” about the emergency unfolding in front of them.

…An argument ensued between the paramedics and police about removing the teenager’s handcuffs so they could treat his injuries. Initially, the police refused, but eventually relented, witnesses said.

One of the paramedics had to hold the boys chest wound closed while they rushed him to Jacobi Medical Center. Medical experts said it may have saved Payne’s life.

As he was wheeled into the emergency room Payne was shrieking: “They threw me through a glass window and now I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”

Initially, EMS did not rush to the scene because when the officers put the call over they did not indicate that there was a pediatric emergency, a source familiar with the incident said. Instead they used a protocol normally used for drunks.

…Saturday night, Payne was apprehended and placed under arrest by two patrol officers in the Little Italy section of the Bronx on a mixed residential and commercial stretch of Arthur Avenue. During the arrest, and after he was handcuffed one of the officers smashed his face through the plate glass window of the Hookah Shop at 2491 Ave., cutting his face and slicing open his chest and puncturing his lung, family and sources said.

…[Javier’s mother, Cherita Payne, 50] said police officers informed her that she would need to go to the 48th precinct and get a letter of approval signed every day that she wants to visit her son [in the hospital] again.

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[Nageib Aldaylam, 47, Hookah Shop Plus owner] said he recognized Payne but does not know him well. He said Payne and another teenager had walked into his shop before the violent confrontation with the police. Aldaylam said he came from behind his slightly elevated section behind the counter to greet the customers as his practice. He said they didn’t buy anything, but they didn’t cause any trouble.

“The kids came in normal, and they left normal,” he said. “They did zero, nothing. All the action happened outside.”

As soon as Payne and his friend stepped out of the store and back on to Arthur Avenue the police officers stopped them. He said he heard the boys and the officers arguing and that heated words were exchanged. He said they went back and forth for several minutes when he was jolted by the sound of the glass exploding.

…He said the officers questioned him while Payne sat and bled. They asked Aldaylam if he had any security footage. He told them no. And then they asked if Payne and his friend had done anything when they came into his store. Again, Aldaylam replied no.

The transcripts stem from the remaining civil lawsuit against the city of San Diego for the actions former officer Anthony Arevalos, who was convicted on multiple counts of sexual battery.

Lawyers for Arevalos’ 13th victim, who is only known as Jane Doe, address a 1997 incident where Arevalos detained a mentally unstable woman and took pictures as she preformed sex acts on herself with his police baton.

Arevalos’ former partner alerted police supervisors of the incident. However, court records show it was never reported to internal affairs. Arevalos would go on to assault 13 women while on duty until his conviction in 2011.

“This all could have been stopped years ago,” Arevalos’ former partner Francisco Torres said under oath in 2012. “He has his Polaroid out and when I got there the female was in the backseat again naked with her handcuffs in front of her and she had the baton.”

A court transcript revealed Lansdowne and his deputy, Ramirez, responded when the incident was reported in the media.

“When the reporters … get it in the news, we have a problem,” Ramirez said to Lansdowne, according to the transcript.

Court records show Lansdowne replied, “I want to do one thing and one thing only — find that documentation.”

…”Chief Ramirez testified under oath that he and chief Lansdowne … get together to try and figure out not if it really happened, not if there are any witnesses left, only to take documentation that is going to come around and bite them in the bottom,” Joe Dicks, Doe’s attorney, said.

Lansdowne retired weeks after Team 10 broke the story about former officer Christopher Hays, who is accused of sexual harassment while on duty.